Meditation for Beginners

A Guide to Learn the Basics of How to Meditate

This guide is for anyone who wants to meditate, or who seeks further understanding of what it really means to meditate. It will help you sort fact from fiction and will also cover the major pitfalls so you can learn how to meditate effectively.

The subject of meditation is often confusing and full of misinformation. Fortunately, Master Charles Cannon, a master spiritual teacher, created this guide to give you the information you need to take informed action and quickly begin to experience meditation’s many benefits.

Once you complete this “Meditation for Beginners Guide,” you will know how to meditate effectively with the best meditation techniques and be equipped with all the tools necessary to improve your long-term health benefits and well-being.

We have all heard that meditation reduces stress, and it does, but the benefits of meditation are so much more than that. Since this is a “Meditation for Beginners Guide,” we will look at stress-relieving benefits first, and then touch upon the more advanced benefits that you can expect after you are a more seasoned meditator.

So what does meditation do? Meditation is now being recommended by doctors everywhere to help in multiple ways including: stress relief, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and even addiction. In other words, meditation helps to improve health.

However, after you have built momentum from the consistent practice of meditation, you will also begin to experience the benefits of more multi-dimensional awareness. This means awareness of who you are in the subtle dimensions which go beyond your physical body, your mind and your emotions. Human beings are multi-dimensional forms of consciousness, and it is in our subtle dimensions that we progressively experience more truthful states of being. It is within our subtle dimensions that we have a true perception of reality.

An Introduction to Meditation

There is a lot of confusion about meditation and how it works.

First and foremost, meditation is a balancing technique. When balance increases, our awareness expands and all the benefits of meditation begin to unfold. Actually there are many experiences of intense focus that produce meditative states and some examples are: a mother cradling her child and flowing loving feelings or an athlete focusing with precision on the task at hand.

The difference is that, when you meditate, it's an internal focus as opposed to an external focus. When we sit, we close our eyes and focus within. We eliminate external distractions and focus on our internal experience.

Most of us live a dynamic modern lifestyle with a focus on the objective or external world. The result is that we miss our inner experience which is happening simultaneously. Meditation, with its internal focus, helps us to emphasize the inner, subjective polarity of our experience. A consistent meditation practice, then, helps create balance between our external and internal experience.

With greater balance through meditation we are able to expand our awareness and be more present in the moment to whatever is happening in our lives.

There are many forms of meditation in practice in the world today. Just remember that all meditation practices work and all are valid. It’s just becoming informed about them.

To name a few:

Mindfulness

Transcendental Meditation

Guided Visualization

Qi Gong

Kundalini Meditation

Heart Rhythm Meditation

Zazen

Sahaja Meditation

Mantra

People often ask us... What are the best ways to meditate, or what are the best meditation techniques for beginners?

Ultimately, they are all the same. It is all about your focus and intention. The best form of meditation for you is the one with which you resonate.

At Synchronicity Foundation, we teach a modern form of meditation called High-Tech Meditation®. It creates balance between the two sides of the brain. The result is relaxation and the experience of more expanded states of awareness. Studies show that this form of meditation is easier for people who live a dynamic modern lifestyle.

High-Tech Meditation works well for both beginners and advanced meditators. It is effective no matter your practice or the number of years you have devoted to it. It is also a perfect meditation for beginners since you need only put on your headphones and push “Play.”

High-Tech Meditation allows you to efficiently experience advanced levels of meditation without all the time and effort of more traditional techniques. In ancient times, people left civilization and sought refuge in caves in order to meditate. High-Tech Meditation with headphones moves the cave to your ears and makes authentic meditative experience possible for the modern person.

The most important advice is to meditate regularly, which means daily. The commitment to a regular, daily practice is more important than any method or technique.

If you are a beginning meditator, even 15 minutes daily is enough to start.

High-Tech Meditation soundtracks are created in 30-minute segments so that you can meditate for 30–60 minutes in a single session. If you can meditate more than once a day, even better.

Brief balancing exercises are also beneficial and are a way to maintain your balance throughout the day. We will discuss this again under "Balance Breaks" below.

Make sure you choose a time of day that you will not be disturbed. Most people choose early in the morning or late at night. But it really does not matter when you meditate, as long as you can devote a period of time to your practice without being disturbed. Each of us has a unique bio-rhythm and we know what times are likely to be best for us.

If possible, create a space where you can practice your meditation and which you use for nothing else. This could be a spare room or a section of a room.

It is also best to meditate at the same time every day.

These tips will assist you in generating momentum. Treat your meditation as a sacred act because it is! If you revere it, the results will be even more impressive.

Meditation generates a lot of power from within. This power, in turn, affects the world around you. So be wakeful and watch the magic and miracles unfold.

Affirmations are a modern version of what are termed “mantras” in the East. They are truthful, positive statements that are very effective as long as you flow positive feelings while you use them. If you are just repeating them unconsciously, however, not much will change. When you simultaneously feel what you are affirming, you bring the experience of your affirmation into your experience in the moment, and with consistent practice, into your life effortlessly.

Flowing positive feelings both in meditation and throughout your day is very important. This is just as important as meditating, and it has a powerful impact on the world around you.

As you progress in your practice, you will find it becomes completely natural and effortless. When this happens, you can simply drop your technique. However, every meditator knows that the mind becomes active again from time to time and, when it does so, you can resume your technique. So keep the techniques for quieting the mind ready and be prepared to use them as needed.

Based on our experience teaching thousands of meditators worldwide for over 30 years, we recommend a modern technology based form of meditation called High-Tech Meditation. We recommend this to everyone, whether you are just learning how to meditate or are a very seasoned meditator. We offer this tool in many formats. Take the Meditation Diagnostic Advisory Tool to get started right away.

For people who want to get the maximum benefit from their meditative practice, we highly recommend a meditation coach. We offer coaching in our Recognitions Program through the Synchronicity School of Modern Spirituality. We are very experienced with teaching people to meditate and have been doing so for thirty years -- we don’t just teach and walk away.

If you want assistance, if you are stuck, or if you would just like regular encouragement from an experienced facilitator regarding your meditation practice, consider registering for the Recognitions Program. It includes our most impactful meditation technology in the delta brainwave range and includes coaching (facilitation) for each 6 month phase. This combination of a powerful meditation technology and experienced facilitation is also very affordable.

Over the years we have heard it said over and over again: "I can't meditate". When we ask why, the person usually replies, "My mind won't stop. I just keep thinking. So I don't do it".

Let's clear this confusion up once and for all—your mind does not need to stop thinking in order to meditate. Your mind is designed to think, so... let it think!

Then, you ask, "What is all this talk about quieting the mind and not thinking?" Since this is primarily a Meditation for Beginners page, let's keep it simple. The basic point is that meditation is about balance, wakefulness and awareness. It is not about forcing something to be a certain way. The restless, unconscious, repetitive mind is a habit. And habits can be changed or broken.

Meditation is about being wakefully present and aware of "what is" happening. If the mind is happening, then be aware of it. And because it is habitual, one can direct it from its usual life-negative focus to a life-positive focus through affirmations and thus create balance and wakefulness.

Thinking represents the negative, external, objective polarity. Stillness of mind is the positive, internal, subjective polarity. You can't have one polarity without its opposite, so you can't have thinking without stillness and vice versa. Both exist within us at all times.

Meditation increases balance through focus on the non-dominant positive polarity, the internal stillness. This in turn expands holistic awareness of both the subjective and objective. We will address these more advanced topics on other web pages.

A Tip on How to Remain Balanced All Day

For people who are serious about the benefits of meditation, we highly suggest "Balance Breaks" throughout your day. Whenever you can remember, take a few minutes to close your eyes and re-balance yourself, reconnect to the energy you generated in your last meditation. Flow positive feelings.

If you do this a few times a day, the benefits will become more constant throughout your daily life. You will find yourself more consistently present and balanced, no matter what is happening in your world. The importance of this practice cannot be overstated. Use it as frequently as you remember. It's also a great way to maintain balance, whether you are at home or at work. These breaks increase your balance, your effectiveness and your performance.

We all know that when we want to do something or learn something, it is always best to have a teacher ... someone who understands the subject, who can point us in the right direction when needed.

This truth is self-evident to anyone in any endeavor. But for some reason, in the West people think it is not necessary to have a spiritual teacher when it comes to meditation. This is not the case.

A master spiritual teacher is very important. This is someone who has experienced every aspect of the meditator's journey and is substantiated in a state of unified awareness.

Master spiritual teachers are uniquely able to share a high level of subtle holistic awareness. They can see where you are stuck and know exactly what to say or do that will further you on your evolutionary journey. It is not so much what they say or do, but "who they are." The master spiritual teacher is known to teach without words through their expression of holistic empowerment, borne of their unified state of being. Then, like a sun and a suntan, you are more easily and naturally entrained to the same holistic states of being in yourself.

Because of the complexity of the evolutionary journey to wholeness in human experience, a modern spiritual teacher is an evolutionary necessity. The wise person realizes this and uses a master spiritual teacher as a guide.

Synchronicity Foundation for Modern Spirituality is a non-profit organization. High-Tech Meditation® and Modern Spirituality® are Registered Trademarks of Synchronicity Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.